Thanks to friends Ersela Jordan and Rebecca Hunter, I have some photos of the Sears Van Dorn.

These Dutch Colonial kit homes can be hard to identify, because they’re so ubiquitous, rather simple, and sometimes, they all look alike!

Ersela managed to get inside the Van Dorn in Beckley, West Virginia and take some wonderful photos. That house is in beautifully original condition. Hopefully, the owners know what a treasure they have there. Too often, people get into such a rush to “modernize” their old house that they forget to save what’s really important.

To see a plethora of pretty, pretty pictures, scroll on down!

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To read more about the kit homes in West Virginia, click here.

To learn more about Rebecca Hunter’s wonderful new book, click here.

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When Dale, Rebecca and I were gallivanting about the Midwest, seeking and finding kit homes, we developed a few “abbreviations” and one of them was, “The CLH.”

“No, don’t bother pulling out the books for this one,” one of us might say. “It’s just a CLH.”

The other two would sigh  and then we’d move on to the next house.

CLH could stand for many things:  “Cute Little House,” or “Compact Little House” or “Common Little House” or sometimes…

“Crummy Little House.”

In other words, the house was so modest, so plain and so tiny (and typically so remuddled) that there was no way to identify it. Further complicating the issue was that all the major companies (Sears, Lewis Manufacturing, Wardway, Gordon Van Tine, Aladdin, Sterling and Harris Brothers), all offered several versions of the CLH.

These houses were so tiny (under 600 square feet) that they were often the victims of significant remodeling and additions, making identification more problematical.

Because of this, I don’t have any photos of CLHs. But we do have testimonials, which might help us find a few CLHs.

One such example of a CLH is the Wayside, and this a fun one because the 1919 Sears Modern Homes catalog showed INTERIOR photos of the house! Those interior photos bear little resemblance to the true facts, but hey, why let facts get in the way of a good story? 

If you know where this house is, and/or are willing to get me a photo, I’d be very grateful!

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To read the next really fun blog, click here.

To learn more about Sears Homes in the Midwest, click here.

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In 2002, I visited my friend Rebecca Hunter in Elgin, Illinois (southwest of Chicago) and she drove me out to Palantine to visit what she described as, “A very unusual Sears Westly.”

Of course, I was captivated and could hardly wait to see the thing.

She told me to close my eyes as we got close, so I did as she asked. When I felt the car come to a stop, she said, “Okay, you can open them.”

Sitting squarely in front of this old Westly, I remarked that it looked like a fine Westly. Yes, it had had some “improvements’ that weren’t historically sensitive, but it wasn’t too onerous.

Then Rebecca giggled a bit and moved the car forward a few feet, so I could get “the rest of the story.”

I gasped. I may have even hyperventilated just a wee bit.

Someone had built an entire neighborhood behind this once-beautiful Westly.

Why anyone would do this? Why would anyone WANT to do this? And how in the world did they get zoning approval?

And as an added note, for those who may be visiting this site for the first time, Sears did not sell “condo kits.” 

To learn more about Rebecca’s newest book (which I highly recommend), click here.

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I see you every day but you never write!  :)  Please leave a comment below.

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Stanhope is the name of a city in Iowa and New Jersey. And it’s also the name of a car that was sold from 1904-1906, by the Twyford Motor Car Company of Brookville, Pennsylvania.

But for this blog, we’re going to talk about the Stanhope that was sold by Aladdin of Bay City, Michigan.

The Stanhope was a fairly popular house. In 1920s America, it was an ideal home in both size and price.  And unlike so many of these diminutive bungalows, it had three bedrooms (most had two).

Yes, they were only 10 x 10, but for the family with four girls and three boys, it was probably a whole lot better than fold-out cots in the living and dining rooms (another popular option at the time).

Aladdin, like Sears, offered kit homes through their mail-order catalog. Sears sold about 70,000 kit homes during their 32 years in the building business. Aladdin sold more than 75,000 homes. The Sears Modern Homes department was in business from 1908-1940. Aladdin started selling houses in 1906, and didn’t close until 1981, a full 75 years!

Here in Norfolk, Virginia (where I live), we have many more Aladdins than Sears. Aladdin had a large mill in Wilmington, NC which explains why there are so many Aladdin kit homes in the Southeast.

Thanks to Dale Wolicki for providing info on Aladdin!

To learn more about Aladdin, click here.

To read more about Roanoake Rapids (which has a massive collection of Aladdin kit homes), click here.

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To learn more about how to identify kit homes, click here.

Have you visited Roanoke Rapids? It’s a town FULL of Aladdin kit homes. Click here to learn more.

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Some models of Sears Homes were wildly popular. Some were not.

The Homewood falls into the second category.

And yet, it’s a puzzle as to why this attractive two-story bungalow was not a big seller for Sears.

With 784 square feet on each floor (about 1,600 square feet total), it was spacious with good-sized rooms and a thoughtful floorplan. And the price ($2,535 in 1928) was about average for the time period.

This house was only offered for a handful of years. Perhaps that’s why we don’t see more models of The Sears Homewood.

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To learn more about Sears Homes, click here.

To read about the other Sears Homes in Northern Illinois, click here.

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In February 2010, I was in Mattoon, Illinois doing research for my book, The Sears Homes of Illinois.

My friend (old house lover and local historian) Joyce St Michael spent the day with me as we tooled around Mattoon and Charleston. Joyce drove me to this darling little bungalow and said, “Rebecca Hunter was here a few years ago and she said this is a Sears Belmont.”

Rebecca was right!

And it’s a beautiful house in mostly original condition.

Perhaps even more interesting, this is the only Sears Belmont that I’ve seen.

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To learn more about Sears Homes, click here.

To learn more about Aunt Addie’s exhumation, click here.

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For 12 years, I’ve been looking hard for the Sears Jefferson. This style of house is fairly popular and look-alikes aren’t too hard to find.

However, the genuine article, the Sears Jefferson is very difficult to find.

In fact, the only one I know of is in Carbondale, Illinois, and I didn’t find it. Rebecca Hunter did.

When I visited the Jefferson in person, my biggest surprise was the lead-glass window over the front door. You don’t find those too often in kit houses. This was a fancy house and it came with all the accoutrements.

To learn more about identifying Sears Homes, click here.

To read about the Aladdin Villa, click here.

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To read the next fascinating blog on Sears Homes, click here.

To hear an amazing story about my amazing Aunt Addie, click here.

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My friend Rachel just loves searching for kit homes. And she’s got a real eye for it, too. In addition to Sears kit homes, Rachel has spotted kit homes from many of the other kit home companies, too, such as Gordon Van Tine, Lewis Manufacturing, Harris Brothers, Aladdin, and more.

However, there’s one model of house that seems to haunt Rachel. Seems like, wherever Rachel goes, she finds a Gordon Van Tine “Roberts” kit home. In my eleven-year career, I’ve probably seen two dozen “Roberts.” In the three years I’ve known Rachel, I’d say she’s see many more than that.

Pretty darn impressive.

Gordon Van Tine was a company that - like Sears - sold kit homes through mail order. According to Dale Patrick Wolicki, Gordon Van Tine sold about 50,000 kit homes during their time in the kit home business (about 1910 - early 1940s). The “Roberts” (Model 535) was one of their more popular houses. Apparently, in Oklahoma (where Rachel lives), it was wildly popular.

To learn more about Gordon Van Tine, visit Dale’s most excellent website.

To buy the book that Dale and Rose spent five years writing, click here.

If you live in Oklahoma and would like to ask Rachel a question about kit homes in the area, please leave a comment below!

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To learn more about Gordon Van Tine, click here.

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The foursquare is one of my favorite housing styles (but then again, I love them all). For 18 years, my name was Rosemary Fuller, so I have a special affinity for the Sears Fullerton for familial reasons, too!

The Fullerton was one of Sears most popular housing styles and it’s easy to identify because it has many distinctive features. Most notable are the flared columns on the front porch with the paneled columns on top.  The Fullerton also has three windows on the home’s front, and the small “landing window” on the side. The attic dormer is also distinctive. The Sears Fullerton has a broad, low dormer window with an undersized sash.

This foursquare also has something I have never seen on any other Sears House: A fireplace chimney that’s centered on the roof! The Fullerton has a pyramidal hip roof, and the chimney is very near the apex of that pyramidal hip. As the chimney rises up through the attic, the bricks are laid in a “twist,” so that the chimney pops out through the roof’s center.

It’s one of the most unusual features I’ve ever seen in a kit house, and it’s unique to the Fullerton.

To learn more about Sears Homes, click here.

If you’re here to read about Addie’s exhumation, this is the place to click.

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To learn more about Dr. Hunter and her books, click here.

To visit Dr. Hunter’s website, click here.

To learn more about Sears Homes, click here.

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The Sears Home we picked out - the Hammond - had a kitchen that was 8 x 10 feet so I asked the salesman (at the Sears Modern Homes Sales Center in Chicago) if we could make the kitchen bigger. He suggested that we make the back of the house two feet wider, so the kitchen, dining room and a back bedroom would all be two feet wider.

This of course changed all the precut lumber and the original plans. They had to make a new set of blueprints and specially cut all the material.

My dad, who had accompanied us to Chicago, asked the salesman how much these changes would cost. We all held our breath while the salesman did the figuring and it seemed like it took him forever. Finally, he told us that the extra square footage would cost an additional $67. We went with the extra two feet.

Reminiscence of Joseph Origer (builder/owner of “The Hammond”).

In 2002, after the publication of my first book, I had the good fortune to talk with many people who’d built their own Sears kit home. One of my favorites was the story of Joseph Origer, who’d built a Sears Hammond on the family farm in 1940.

Joseph Origer was born in 1914 in a Sears Home, on a farm near North Judson, Indiana. His father had built the two-story kit house (Modern Home #101) a year earlier, in 1913. Twenty-six years later,  in the summer of 1940, Joseph and his new wife traveled to a Sears Modern Homes Sales Center in nearby Chicago to pick out another Sears kit home to build on the same farm.

The young couple chose The Hammond -  a 1000-square foot, five-room Honor-Bilt bungalow with casement windows. On July 4^th, 1940, two weeks after placing the order, their home arrived in one boxcar at the train depot. Joseph Origer shared some precious memories and wonderful details about the building of these two Sears homes.

My dad built a Sears kit silo in 1911 and he was so impressed with the quality of the lumber (all cypress) that he decided to buy and build Sears Modern Home #101.

Our farm adjoined the old Pennsylvania Railroad. Dad was working in the field when he saw a train pass by with building materials piled high on open flat cars and thought, ‘I bet that’s my house!’ Dad went into the barn and hitched up the horses and went down to the depot to pick up his house. The story is that while Dad was at the depot unloading the building materials, the depot agent looked at the indoor plumbing fixtures and asked, ‘What are those things?’

I remember my father telling me the kit home was all number one lumber and material. All the building materials cost $879 and the total expense, including all carpenter labor, was less than $1500.I still have the itemized list of materials for that house!

When I decided to marry and stay on the farm, my parents suggested we go to Chicago and pick out another Sears home. Dad said, “you know the material will be good.”

It was 1940 when we bought the house. I think that was the last year they sold these homes. I had a 1939 Modern Homes catalog, so I sent for a 1940 catalog and found there had been a slight price increase. This was the time when Hitler was invading Poland and prices had gone up a little. I was excited about getting a house, but a friend of mine said, “Joe, you should wait a couple years until prices come down.” I’m glad I didn’t wait. It would have been a long wait.

We went to Chicago to look at Sears’ housing displays and get a little more definite information. The Sales Center had samples of inside doors and millwork that we could look at. They had different samples of the inside fixtures and millwork.

The home we picked out - the Hammond - had a kitchen that was 8 x 10 feet so I asked the salesman (at the Sears Modern Homes Sales Center in Chicago) if we could make the kitchen bigger. He suggested that we make the back of the house two feet wider, so the kitchen, dining room and a back bedroom would all be two feet wider.

This of course changed all the precut lumber and the original plans. They had to make a new set of blueprints and specially cut all the material. My dad asked how much these changes would cost. We all held our breath while the salesman did the figuring and it seemed like it took him forever. Finally, he told us that the extra square footage would cost an additional $67. We went with the extra two feet.

The salesman said if we had it all sent in one shipment, it’d be cheaper then having it sent in several shipments, which was another option. The second option was for people who didn’t have a place to store all the building materials. We went with one shipment to save a little money.

The house arrived about two weeks after we ordered it. The station agent called and said we had a carload of building material. We hauled it home on a truck and that took quite a few trips. Fortunately, we only had to travel 2 ½ miles. It all fit in one boxcar, but it was pretty tightly packed.

The plaster (for the walls) and cement (for the foundation) was included in the price that we paid. Sears placed the orders for those materials with a local lumber yard. I remember someone from the yard called me and asked, “when do you want your plaster and cement delivered?” I hadn’t been aware that Sears did it that way.

We built The Hammond  400 feet away from Modern Home #101. We hired a retired carpenter that lived in town to help us build it. He charged us 50 cents an hour. He said the material was excellent quality and that you could pick up any 2 x 4 and use it as a straight edge.

The house arrived on July 4^th and we were living in it by winter. When the house was completed, the total cost of my house, including everything -  bathroom fixtures, plumbing, wiring, paint and varnish - was about $2,700. These 60-plus years The Hammond has been a wonderful house. I am glad I built it. This house has been well maintained inside and out, and it is still just as good as new.

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To learn more about Dale Wolicki, click here.

To learn more about Sears Homes, click here.

To learn more about the Sears Homes of Illinois, lookie here.

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